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pkingston -at- nomadsoft -dot- co -dot- uk wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> Has anyone had any experience working with Sun's StarOffice 5.2 to create
> documents?
>
> I am being asked to consider using this instead of Word (to save money, of
> course).
I've had to evaluate StarOffice in the last year, and I've written a
couple of articles about it, so I can tell you that it's roughly on a
par with MS Word for functionality and reliability. I'm not wildly
enthused about it, but it will do.
The main reasons to use StarOffice are:
- it's available for free download.
- the similarity to MS Office, which means that most users can easily
transfer. Its MS Word translation filters are also some of the best I've
seen.
- it's the fullest office suite available on UNIX/Linux.
The main reasons not to use StarOffice are:
- you currently have to open the entire office suite; you can't just
open one application, such as the word processor.
- it performs sluggishly with large documents.
- the similarity to MS Office: not only are some of the faults
reproduced, such as burying the styles deep in the menu, but there are
enough differences to throw users off.
One thing you may not be aware of is that there is now an open source
version of StarOffice called OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org). That means
you can expect all sorts of upgrades to the product.
--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- progeny -dot- com
"All the federales say
They could have had him any day,
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness, I suppose."
- Townes Van Zandt, "Poncho and Lefty"
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